Entwined. In tiny, multicoloured clothes,
between their artificial totem poles,
how well they imitate, although one loathes
comparing them, a nest of snakes who fled
the cool dark soil, abandoning their holes.
The beach sand seethes and shimmers, simmers red
as bodies burn and stir like stoking coals:
Fanatics, sunburnt, wishing they were moles.

                                             22 May, 2024